The “Why Buy The Cow” Approach to advertising?

14Oct11

In a recent New York Times article, I learned about an interesting new advertising technique: creating a campaign that allows your consumers to make additional PR content for you in the guide os competition.

Jomar Stores, a bargain chain in Philly, is a middle-class retailer with a twist: rather then purchasing the overstock in bulk from larger department stores, they purchase returned items, which means that they frequently sell one-of-a-kind items at their markdown price. Recently, they have implemented a new advertising strategy, which utilizes customer participation and social media to create the whole experience.

The contest is called “If you got a bargain, flaunt it!” and asks customers to take photos of themselves with their favorite deals purchased from a Jomar Store. Using the contest as an advertising campaign both gives exposure to the store and the unique products they offer, and allows customers “flaunting” the products they purchased to incidentally create further advertising for the store. This is a strong example of how, within advertising media, “[In the context of the emergence of a global convergence culture and increasing pressures on media workers to interact and co-create with their intended audiences] there is a potential for an unprecedented new visibility for advertising practitioners.” (Deuze, p. 114) It’s also interesting because the contest basically asks the consumers to create the ads for the company, further blurring the lines not only between above and below the line producers of advertising (115-6) but also between advertisers and consumers.

Jomar’s entire marketing strategy outside of this campaign is also a great representation of how advertisers can utilize the various social and interactive media to create a relationship with your consumers that goes beyond just provider/customer, but also creator/audience, and interactive pal as well.